Rob Clark
Curia’s Foreign Policy DirectorDefence Secretary Grant Shapps has apologised to the 272,000 members of the Armed Forces hit by the Ministry of Defence cyberattack, in a statement to the House of Commons late on Tuesday afternoon. Mr Shapps said “I want to apologise for the men and women affected – it should not happen.”
It emerged over 24 hours previously that the MoD’s outsourcing partner for payroll, pensions, and administration, public sector contractor Shared Services Connected Limited (SSCL), was hit by a cyber-security attack targeting Armed Forces’ banking details and personal records, including addresses.
SSCL is the largest provider of critical business support services for Government, the UK Military & Veterans, Metropolitan Police Service, and the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB), and support the largest single HMRC tax and NI submission annually at over £2 billion.
Government Response on Security Issue So Far
Despite the Government refusing to name the rogue actor involved on grounds of national security, it is almost universally understood to be traced back to China. Mr Shapps said that the attack “was the suspected work of a malign actor” but added “we cannot rule out state involvement”.
The Defence Secretary went on to say that the cyberattack shows that the UK is facing “rising and evolving threats” adding: “The world is becoming somewhat more dangerous” echoing previous assessments from his office that the world is entering a ‘prewar era’ and is becoming increasingly dangerous and unpredictable.
This news comes as a further embarrassing blow to the Government coming only weeks after revelations that the Electoral Commission was successfully hacked by agents working on behalf of the Chinese government, in addition to numerous Members of Parliemanet critical of the Chinese government, in a blatant assault on British democracy.
The hacking attack on the British military by China is understood to be on an enormous scale, involving up to 270,000 serving personnel, as well as reservists and up to two million veterans, all three services affected. It is believed that this latest hacking operation has been going on for three weeks, but was discovered last week after investigators started tracking a pattern of unusual activity.
Labour’s Shadow Defence Secretary, Joh Healey, stated that “the media have clearly been briefed that China is behind the hack but the Defence Secretary only tells us about a malign actor. Now, the Government rightly has a very rigorous system before official accusations or attributions are made but if this deep data breach is found to be carried out by a hostile state, it would represent a very serious threat to our national security.”
Senior Conservatives Hit out at Foreign Office
Despite a fractious Conservative parliamentary party, there seemed to be a rare show of unified condemnation at how the Foreign Office are handling broader engagement with China, often seeking to place economic interests with Beijing above national security.
Senior Tory backbench MPs, ranging from Mark Fancois, Tobias Ellwood, Sir Ian Duncan Smith, and Alicia Kearns, all criticised the Government’s handling of its often confused and incoherent China policy.
Former leader of the Conservative Party Sir Iain Duncan Smith urged the Government to put China in the enhanced tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme. The Conservative MP asked: “Why in heaven’s name don’t we take the decision to place this malign actor into that enhanced place and then make sure we deal with them accordingly?”
Meanwhile the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Alicia Kearns, called on the Government to “get the Foreign Office changing our position” on China, whilst Mark Francois, former Armed Forces minister and member of the Defence Select Committee, called for the Government to stand up to China, accusing the Foreign Office of being behind the Government’s refusal to name the malign actor universally understood to be China.
What Next for Sino-British Relations?
Whilst the Government are understandably weary of pushing back against suspected malign Chinese activity, there is fast growing increased demand from within the parliamentary Conservative party from experienced foreign policy and defence hawks, in addition to the more doveish Labour front benches, to call for tougher action from Number 10 on China, and the risks and threats which Beijing pose to the UK’s national security.
Some genuinely positive steps were announced by Oliver Dowden, the Deputy Prime Minister, in the aftermath of March’s damaging revelations on the Chinese hacking scandal on the Electoral Commission and UK MPs, but these will take some time to enact and become normal practice – such as increased vetting of UK academics working with China on sensitive technologies.
Meanwhile, the scale of Chinese offensive cyber attacks against supposedly toughened digital infrastructure – like the MoD – must lead to a renewed focus by Government – and not the mandarins running the FCDO – on how to better protect highly sensitive UK digital infrastructure, whilst also devising means by which to deter and punish where necessary malign and rogue actors who seek to threaten the UK’s national security.
This must include an immediate internal review by SSCL of its cyber security practices and counter-measures, in addition to all other Government departments reviewing their own systems, as this latest attack doubtfully occurred in isolation. One thing is certain – this status quo cannot be allowed to continue unchecked.
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